Pulling A Blyleven

The glorious thing about being a Twins fan during the off-season Winter meetings is that one short blurb can pretty much sum up all of Terry Ryan's activity. Indeed, this 4-day orgy of gluttonous revery makes Liz Taylor's relationship to vicodin and Maker's Mark seem salubrious (That's right, I said salubrious instead of healthy. Big whup, wanna fight about it?).

Initially I figured I would avoid commenting on the mess, being that calling baseball's GMs and owners out on their inane greed is akin to telling Nicole Ritchie she's got a weight problem...Oh ok, I know there's a line where edgy humor crosses over into inappropriate land. She should've thought of that before agreeing to do a Simple Life 5, am I right?

So, now I've decided to wax critical (doesn't it seem weird when you don't say philosophical?) on baseball's annual swinger's party because Gil Meche happened. Wow, 55 million clams to a guy whose career ERA is 4.65? Deessspppeeerate. Seriously, Bud Selig probably called up KC's GM Dayton Moore and said, "Listen....yeeeah....we can't let you send Mark Redman to another All-Star game....I'm gonna need you to go ahead and file that Gil Meche 55 million dollar TPS report ASAP..mmmmm k?" If it were me, I woulda gone all Biff Tannin on him: "HELLO! MCFLY! ANYBODY HOME?"

So, I realize that this post now has about as many pop cultural references and is about as devoid of substantive content as a Jim "Seriously, I Get Paid To Write This?" Souhan column. But COME ON! We're having trouble signing 'Un'dell White and the Royals go and fill a hole in their rotation before we do.

And let me tell you, now that they've released Ruffles Hernandez, that's quite a sizeable hole to fill. And it also means that our potato chip references will severely drop next season.

Sigh.

---WV

UPDATE

Well thank goodness we can't sign "Un"dell, now our problems are really solved: Ken Harvey Inked to Minor League Deal. And the terrible thing is, he's like 97 and still doing those "and now... the rest of the story" radio bits. But hey, he was an All-Star once, right? Oh, the depression.

ADDENDUM:

Sorry for the delay, I was out riding my hoverboard and drinking Pepsi because Max Headroom told me to. Makes a person wonder just how many Back to the Future references we can make in this thing (but we'll never mention the third installment because THAT NEVER HAPPENED).

Anyway, the winter meetings never interest me, except in a, "Why in the Hell did they do that?" way (see Cleveland signing Aaron Fultz). I'm firmly in the Terry Ryan camp of not buying your players, but growing them.

Although i do detect a certain Dougie Baseball/Dougie Bubblegum/Stretch/Dougie Pinetar/Scoop McGee on the radar. Dare I dream? I mean, he would be a steal, only come in late innings as a defensive replacement, and strike out only once or twice a game. Ah, who am I kidding?

I am, however, sad that Texas locked up Padilla. I was high on him. Not because he's a stellar pitcher, but he would have been a good and relatively inexpensive addition to shore up the rotation. Damn you, Texas, for throwing money around like you're still in the Enron era.

At any rate, it can be fun to watch the free agent tracker (Hey, J.C. Romero is available -- for dinner!), and I think it will be beyond argument as the season unfolds next year that the AL Central is the best division in all of baseball.

To continue the litany of Michael J. Fox movie references, the winter meetings are like Teen Wolf. When they first start off, nothing really happens, and you feel kinda pathetic, and then someone turns into a werewolf (Houston Astros signing El Caballo to a 30 year/80 kajillion dollar contract) and the whole "team" feels invincible, and the next thing you know, Gary Matthews Jr. is going for more money than the state of Montana produces all year, and Stiles (The Yankees) shows up and just exploits the hell out of the whole thing. But some people on the team know that eventually you have to be who you be (Terry Ryan) and that's when the real heart of a champion comes out. (Follow me?) These teams with their gaudy numbers, flashy contracts, and sexy free agents (Freddy Garcia is hawt in that "I don't care or try" sort of way); they're chasing the blonde, Pamela Wells. But Twins are after Boof. And that's when you make the free throws and beat the Dragons.

Reading back on that, it made perfect sense.

--RK